The chamber was silent.

  At the centre, she stood, silver eyes staring down at Selis, the sword floating above her.

  And inside her, something burned.

  The memories came all at once, not as visions but as sensation.

  The blood of the three cloaked figures, absorbed into the sphere, merged with her rebirth, surged through her veins like fire. Their lives flashed behind her eyes in violent, overlapping fragments.

  Her body staggered.

  One hand flew to her face, fingers pressing against her temple. Her other hand reached out, grasping at nothing.

  She saw what they had seen.

  The camp above, torn apart by fire and fear.

  Then the pain.

  Their bodies breaking. Their minds unravelling as the blood was ripped from them.

  Her legs gave out. She dropped.

  The blood covering the chamber floor recoiled violently, rippling outward in waves. The crimson retreated as she fell, creating a widening circle of bare stone around her.

  Her hands struck the ground, dry stone, untouched by blood. Her white hair fell forward, curtaining her face. Her breath came in short, desperate gasps.

  She felt the truth beneath their deaths.

  Lives born not from choice, but from captivity. Raised in breeding camps where sunlight never touched their skin. Made to bleed before they could walk. Taught to obey before they could speak.

  And through it all, one memory burned brightest.

  A child, perhaps seven, perhaps eight, touching fire for the first time. The flames bloomed violet in small palms, and for one precious moment, eyes widened not with fear but with wonder. Another child reached out and touched the flame. It did not burn. They smiled at each other, the first and last gentle thing they would ever share.

  Then a black knight came. Spectral flames, teal-green and cold, leaked from the gaps in his armor, trailing upward like torn banners moving without wind.

  They were not born monsters. They were forged into them.

  Her fingers curled, nails scraping against bare stone.

  And in that final instant, she felt the only thing that had ever been truly theirs: their suffering.

  She could taste it.

  A sob tore from her throat, raw, broken, inhuman.

  Her shoulders trembled. Her head bowed lower, her forehead nearly touching the ground. Around her, the blood pressed against its invisible boundary, unable to cross, trembling at the circle’s edge.

  With the memories came knowledge.

  She felt the fire in their hands, the wild, twisting flames they had summoned. She understood how it moved, how it burned, how it obeyed.

  Now it was hers.

  Her hand lifted slowly, trembling.

  Fire bloomed in her palm, violet and green and searing white, twisting like a living thing. The heat was immediate, but it didn’t burn her.

  It obeyed.

  She stared at it through crimson tear-streaked eyes, silver reflecting the flames.

  Blood carried memory. Blood carried power. Blood carried souls.

  When she inevitably consumed the flame creature’s blood, she consumed them.

  The fire flickered and died.

  She remained in the stone floor, breathing hard, her body shaking.

  Silver eyes, wet with blood. And the blood tears fell.

  Thick, dark rivulets streamed down her pale cheeks, dripping onto the bare stone. The blood pooled at the edge of the circle, mingling with the crimson that dared not touch her.

  She wept in silence, her face tilted upward. Slowly, she rose to her feet, legs trembling.

  Then the veils moved.

  The ancient silk hanging between the columns stirred, not from wind, but from will. The fabric trembled, shimmering faintly, as the blood coating it recoiled and slid away, as though the cloth were waking from centuries of sleep.

  One by one, the veils tore free. They flew.

  The silk ribboned through the air, flowing toward her in graceful spirals. The fabric shifted as it moved, no longer ancient and frayed, but pristine, luminous, alive.

  It wrapped around her.

  The silk coiled across her shoulders, down her arms, around her torso. It moulded to her shape, fitting like ceremonial armour yet flowing with impossible grace. The surface gleamed like moonlit silver, alive with delicate traceries of light.

  The fabric breathed. It responded to her.

  She stood clothed in light and silk, the sword floating above her, the fire opal pulsing in rhythm with the fabric's glow.

  Then her body moved.

  Not by Selene will.

  Her arm lifted without her command, slow and deliberate, palm open.

  Something’s wrong. I can’t… stop it.

  Her legs steadied beneath her, no longer trembling.

  Stop. STOP.

  Her posture straightened, perfectly balanced, as though carved from stone.

  She tried to resist, but to no avail.

  Her fingers wouldn't curl. Her breath wouldn't quicken. Her body moved like a puppet, beautiful and cold, responding to something she couldn't control.

  Panic surged through her.

  Stop. Please. Stop.

  But the body didn't listen.

  It wasn't hers anymore.

  She was inside it, seeing through silver eyes, but she couldn’t reach the edges of herself. She couldn’t make her arms lower or her voice speak.

  Trapped. A passenger in a cage of blood and bone.

  Her thoughts scattered, fragmenting like light through broken glass. Faces flickered behind her eyes, distant, fading. Voices she couldn’t quite hear. Names she couldn’t quite remember.

  She reached for them desperately, grasping at the edges of memory before they slipped away.

  Eldric.

  The name surfaced like something pulled from deep water.

  An image followed, sharp gray eyes softening as he handed her something small. Metal catching the light. Brass? A quiet ticking. His voice, low and careful: “Keep this close, little owl.”

  The memory was fragile, but it was hers. She clung to it, holding it against the tide of blood and light threatening to drown her completely.

  There was something he had given her. Something that ticked. Something with gears that whispered in steady rhythm.

  A watch?

  The shape wouldn’t come clear, only the weight of it in her palm, the warmth of the metal.

  She couldn’t remember the details. But she remembered it mattered.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Her hand gestured.

  A single, graceful motion, fingers curling slightly, palm tilting downward.

  The blood responded.

  The thin layer covering the chamber floor moved. It obeyed.

  The crimson beneath Selis began to shift, flowing inward, gathering beneath her broken body. It lifted her, gently at first, then with growing force, raising her off the ground.

  Selis gasped, eyes widening in terror.

  "Don't—"

  Her voice cracked.

  The blood carried her forward, sliding her across the chamber floor toward the figure at its centre. She tried to resist, her hands slapping against the crimson surface, fingers clawing for purchase.

  But there was nothing to hold.

  Her broken leg dragged uselessly behind her, scraping against the blood-slicked stone. She gasped, sobbing, her body jerking with each futile attempt to stop.

  "Selene—" she cried, voice raw. "Selene, please—"

  The blood didn't stop. It pulled her closer.

  "Architect, help me—"

  The words tumbled out in desperate prayer.

  "Please, I—"

  The blood brought her to the edge of the circle.

  Then it stopped.

  Selis lay on her stomach, gasping, trembling, her body half-submerged in the shallow crimson pool. Her hands splayed before her, fingers still clawing at the ground. Her broken leg twisted behind her. Blood covered her completely, face, hair, clothes.

  She looked up.

  The figure stood before her, towering, radiant, untouchable.

  Her eyes lowered, wet with blood, glowing softly.

  The figure had brought her here to stand before it, alone.

  Selis’s breath came in short, panicked gasps.

  “Selene,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It’s me. It’s Selis. If you’re in there…”

  The silver eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t soften. They simply stared.

  And within them, trapped behind the divine eyes, Selene screamed silently.

  I'm still here. I'm still—

  She knew this face. This woman. This name.

  Selis.

  The memory stirred faintly, like an echo beneath water. Brown hair. Blue eyes. The careful way she organized samples. Her voice, always calm.

  Was she still Selene?

  Or something wearing her face?

  She didn't know.

  But she was still inside.

  Still fighting.

  Still holding onto the memory of a man and the gift she couldn’t quite remember.

  Silence hung between them.

  The figure stood above her, towering, radiant, impossibly still.

  Then she spoke.

  The voice wasn't Selene's.

  It was hers, the same pitch, the same cadence, but older. Layered. As though a thousand voices spoke through her throat at once.

  "Stop trembling. It's pathetic."

  Selis flinched, her breath hitching.

  The figure's silver eyes gazed down at her, unblinking.

  "You saw it all, didn't you? The birth. The tears. Lucky you—front row seat to something your little human mind can't even comprehend."

  The blood beneath Selis trembled faintly, rippling in rhythm with the figure's words.

  "So..."

  The figure’s hand lifted slowly, palm open, fingers elegantly spread.

  "I suppose you'll do. My first."

  Selis's breath caught. "The first—"

  A pause. The silver eyes grew distant, seeing through time itself, as though selecting the word carefully from memory.

  “Apostle.” She gave a slight laugh. “Yes, that sounds about right.”

  The word fell like a stone into water, sending ripples through the silence.

  The figure's hand turned, palm facing downward.

  And blood began to fall. From her.

  The tears streaming down the figure’s pale cheeks thickened, pouring faster. The blood flowed, running down her neck and shoulders, gathering at the tips of her outstretched fingers.

  It fell in slow, deliberate drops.

  Each one landed on Selis’s upturned face, forehead, cheeks, lips, warm and thick and impossibly heavy.

  Selis gasped, her body convulsing.

  The blood seeped into her skin.

  It merged with her, sinking beneath the surface, threading through her veins like molten fire.

  Selis screamed.

  Her back arched, her hands slamming against the stone. Pain exploded through her body, white-hot, unbearable, consuming.

  Her broken leg moved.

  The bone shifted beneath her skin.

  Grinding.

  The sound was wet, organic, bone scraping against bone, cartilage tearing, reforming. Her shin twisted, the jagged edge of the break visible beneath stretched skin for one horrifying moment before it slid back into place.

  CRACK.

  The bone snapped back into place with brutal force.

  Selis screamed again, raw, broken, desperate.

  The flesh around it flared red, swelling grotesquely before suddenly contracting. Muscle fibres wove themselves back together. Tendons stretched and fused. Blood vessels branched like lightning, spreading through reformed tissue.

  Her leg straightened, the twisted angle correcting itself in violent, jerking motions. Each movement was accompanied by that wet grinding, that organic reformation of what had been destroyed.

  The skin sealed last, spreading like water across the exposed muscle, smooth and pale and perfect.

  Whole.

  Her other wounds followed.

  The gashes on her hands closed, skin knitting together in rapid, visible threads. The bruises across her ribs faded, purple to yellow to nothing in seconds. The blood covering her face evaporated, leaving her skin pale and clean beneath.

  Then she heard it.

  A sound beneath the pain, like a hymn sung through water. Not words, but something older. A heartbeat that wasn’t hers, pulsing in rhythm with the blood threading through her veins.

  But something else changed. Her eyes burned.

  She gasped, her hands flying to her face. Heat lanced through her skull, searing behind her eyes. The pain was different, not healing but transformation. She felt her eyes changing, reshaping, becoming something they weren’t meant to be.

  She sobbed, her body trembling violently.

  And then the pain stopped.

  Selis collapsed onto her side, gasping, her chest heaving. Her hands shook as she lowered them from her face.

  She blinked.

  The chamber looked… different. Too sharp. Too clear. She could see every droplet of blood on the columns, every hairline crack in the stone, every mote of dust suspended in the air. The shadows had depth she’d never noticed. The light had layers, countless subtle gradients she’d never perceived.

  She could see everything.

  Then she felt it.

  A warmth at the corner of her eye.

  Slow. Wet.

  She reached up, her fingers trembling, and touched her cheek.

  Blood.

  Thick, dark tears streamed from her eyes, running down her face in slow rivulets.

  She stared at her bloodied fingers. "What—" she whispered, her voice breaking. "What did you—"

  The figure’s hand lowered.

  Her silver eyes, still wet with blood, looked down at Selis.

  And the voice spoke again.

  "You belong to me now. Simple as that."

  The words settled into Selis’s bones like ice.

  She tried to speak, to protest, but her throat closed around the words. The blood tears fell faster, streaming down her cheeks in thick, continuous streams. Just like the figure above her. Marked. Changed. Bound.

  Inside, trapped of the divine, Selene screamed silently.

  What have I done?

  She watched Selis weeping blood, her blood.

  And she couldn’t stop it.

  Selis, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  But the words never reached her lips.

  The divine mouth remained closed, silent, perfect.

  And the blood tears kept falling.

  The blood began to move.

  At the centre of the chamber, between the divine and the altar, the thin crimson layer started to shift. It spiraled.

  The blood swirled inward, coiling tighter and tighter, gathering speed. A vortex formed, perfectly circular, perfectly centred, spinning faster with each passing second.

  The sound was low at first, a faint hum that grew into a deep, resonant roar. The crimson turned inward, pulling toward a centre that glowed faintly with light.

  Selis stared, eyes wide, Her body stalled.

  "What—"

  The figure began to walk.

  Her movements were slow, deliberate, each step perfectly measured. The sword floated above her, the fire opal pulsing in rhythm with her stride. The fabric wrapped around her shimmered, responding to her.

  She walked toward the vortex.

  And the blood beneath Selis moved with her.

  Selis gasped as the crimson layer shifted, carrying her forward. She tried to resist again, hands slapping against stone, but the blood pulled her along, smooth and unyielding.

  “Wait,” she breathed, her voice breaking. “Wait, I—”

  The blood didn’t stop. It carried her toward the vortex, following the figure's path.

  The divine reached the spiraling edge and stepped into its centre without hesitation.

  The blood around her feet recoiled instantly, peeling away to create a perfect circle of bare stone. Even within the vortex, the blood did not dare touch her. The crimson spiraled around her faster and faster, but it could not reach her.

  The sword followed, drifting through the air above her head. The fire opal blazed brighter, colours flashing in rapid sequence casting waves of radiant light across the spinning blood.

  Selis was pulled to the vortex's edge and pushed in.

  She stumbled, her healed leg catching her weight. Her hands flew out instinctively.

  The blood caught her.

  It swirled around her, spiraling upward, enveloping her completely. She gasped as the crimson closed over her head, thick and warm, pulling her into its current.

  The figure stood at the centre, perfectly still, a pillar of calm within chaos. The circle of bare stone remained beneath her feet as the vortex spun violently around them.

  The blood rose.

  Higher. Higher.

  A massive, spiraling column enclosed them both, a towering wall of crimson that blocked out the chamber completely. The columns, the dome, the altar, all swallowed by the roaring torrent.

  Selis couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

  The blood pressed against her from all sides, thick and viscous, spinning faster and faster. She felt herself lifted, suspended, turning within the vortex’s relentless current.

  The fire opal’s light blazed through the blood, gold and violet and crimson bleeding through the translucent torrent like stained glass.

  Then everything shifted.

  The world twisted.

  Not up. Not down.

  Sideways.

  Selis’s stomach lurched. Her vision blurred. The blood around her trembled, rippling with impossible force, as though reality itself were bending.

  For one heartbeat, there was nothing.

  No sound. No light. No sensation.

  Just void.

  Then the blood collapsed.

  All at once, the spiraling column dropped like a curtain severed from its height. The crimson poured down in thick, heavy sheets, splashing onto scorched earth below.

  Selis fell with it.

  The vortex released her, and she tumbled forward, spinning, weightless, carried by the blood’s vortex momentum.

  She hit the ground hard.

  Her shoulder slammed into ash-covered earth, driving the air from her lungs. She rolled once, twice, three times, her body curling instinctively.

  She finally stopped, sprawled on her side, gasping.

  Pain lanced through her shoulder. Her hands scraped against ash and dirt. Her vision swam.

  For a moment, she couldn't move.

  Just breathed.

  Slowly, she pushed herself up onto hands and knees, coughing, trembling.

  The air was different here.

  Cold. Sharp. Thick with smoke and burning wood.

  She looked up.

  Her breath stalled.

  The camp.

  What remained of it.

  Flames still climbed through the wreckage, smaller now, dying, but relentless. They flickered strangely, burning faster than they should. Tents were reduced to blackened frames and ash. The scaffolding around the Grand Entrance had collapsed into twisted, charred ruin. Smoke rose in thick columns against the night sky.

  Bodies lay scattered across the ground. Researchers. Labourers. Guards.

  Some still burned, flames licking at clothes and skin. Others lay motionless, half-buried in soot and debris, faces frozen in terror.

  The forest beyond smouldered, trees reduced to skeletal husks. Embers drifted through the air like snow, hissing as they landed.

  Selis's hands trembled. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. She couldn't look away.

  Close by, the divine stood perfectly still, a faint irritation tightening her expression.

  White hair shimmered in the firelight, silver eyes reflecting the flames. The fabric wrapped around her gleamed like liquid moonlight, untouched by ash or smoke.

  The sword floated above her, the fire opal blazing, casting waves of colour across the devastation.

  And the world around her was ruin.

  Is this… was this… the camp?

  The thought flickered through Selene’s trapped consciousness and died, crushed beneath divine indifference.

  The figure’s eyes lowered to Selis, who knelt in the ash, her blood-streaked face turned upward, new blue eyes wide and bleeding.

  “Look at you,” the voice continued, amused. “Kneeling in the ashen dirt, trying so hard to understand. You can see everything now, can’t you? Every detail. Every death.”

  A pause. The silver eyes glowed softly.

  Selis saw everything.

  The destruction. The death.

  And she understood nothing.